Criminal Penalties for Corporate Wrongdoers Should Be Added to Highway Bill
Nov. 10, 2015
Criminal Penalties for Corporate Wrongdoers Should Be Added to Highway Bill
New criminal provisions that would make it a crime for companies and executives to hide information about serious dangers in their products must be added to the highway bill, Public Citizen and five other groups told the conferees for the highway bill in a letter (PDF) today.
The past few years have witnessed revelation after revelation of extraordinary wrongdoing in the auto industry. Product defects and product defect cover-ups have resulted in the preventable deaths of many hundreds of people and devastating lifetime injuries to hundreds more.
By incorporating the Hide No Harm Act (S. 2140) and/or S. 1743 (Hide No Harm Act specifically for the auto industry) into the highway bill, lawmakers would ensure that companies that recklessly endanger people by selling defective vehicles or parts and/or hide information from the public and regulators about product safety defects would be held accountable with strong criminal penalties.
The other groups who signed the letter are Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Center for Auto Safety, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
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